Hello.
I have some more feedback.
Today, I played several short, test-only games to pinpoint more problems. I found quite a few.
1. Some of the race-specific ground forces need the standard, non-race-specific version of enlistment centre.
They thus can't be hired. Tested on Drazi.
2. Planetary assault troops are useless.
They're like ground forces, except they can move in space. As a penalty, they have 2 extra support cost. They get no bonus whatsoever attacking systems.
Why would I need a weaker, more expensive unit that gets space travel as the only bonus? I don't.
3. Ground defense forces are useless after early game.
Their strength is 2. They get a bonus based on buildings, yes, but it doesn't really help when the system is being attacked by a 20-strength cruiser. Their only use is makeshift defense for new systems and planets soon to be attacked.
Solution to 2 and 3:
Give planetary assault troops a heavy bonus when attacking system, something like 500% or more. Up their starting strength to 3. Cut their costs to levels similar to ground defenders.
Additionally, make the following changes to defense units' configuration: Defend against planetary assault troops first. That's important part. Also, give them a bonus against these specific troops. 400-450% would do, as they'll be getting other bonuses anyways. Also up their strength to 3.
This will have two effects:
Firstly, ground forces fight eachother, which only makes sense.
Secondly, planetary assault troops can cause heavy damage compared to their cost when attacking a planet without ground defenders. This motivates usage of both unit types, as leaving your battle-planet without any ground troops would give cheap kills to the enemy attackers.
Additionally, 1 first strike could be given to both defense and offense units to make them even more of a danger to undefended capitals in systems.
4. Colony/Generation ships.
Whichever name you use, doesn't matter.
First off, there are a LOT of variants, each of them being identical. Even for the name part. Remove the ones that make the unit civilopedia feel like Department of Redudancy Department.
Second, they're seriously too expensive.
From quick game speed:
Ground forces: 6
Scout: 33
Construction Ship: 40
Frigate: 120
Generation Ship: 670
This does NOT encourage colonization at all. It's possible to build a single super-system that can work as well as 6 systems, without the maintenance costs, far more easily than it is to build a single colony ship.
Early game is supposed to be just that, colonization. Now it just turns into late game if-you-think-you've-got-the-resources thing. Simply put: Not worth it.
I'd recommend cutting the cost to 1/3 or 1/4 of the current.
5. I found the likely reason why AI isn't colonizing, apart from the colony ship cost.
And it's simple. Raiders.
They're slightly weaker in pure strength than starting recons, but they're faster. Okay, makes sense. They also have a natural first strike. Still makes sense. But the other parts make it just ridiculous.
It already has 1 first strike. Then, it starts with a promotion that gives it another one. Now, 2 first strikes might not sound much, but during the early game, when you have just your few ships, it is a lot. It's guaranteed damage to your ship, unless it has crazy high promotions, which it, more often than has, doesn't have.
Additional problem is the high spawn rate of the raiders. You need more ships than you can maintain, and if you don't use them well, more than you can build. AI isn't too capable in handling its ships, so it has little to no chances against the raider hordes.
And the final straw: Recons have a large attack penalty against basically everything. So, if you don't have any heavier ships in the area, you can only hope the raider attacks you so you don't have to attack it. And if it's in a system, it probably won't.
Solutions:
Remove the free promotions from the raider, it's already strong enough without them.
Remove or decrease the attack penalty on other recon ships from the recon ships. It gives them more value in a standard war, too, instead of being simply decoy ships.
6. On traits.
Looking at the leader/civilization traits, I found them woefully unbalanced.
Starting with the creative:
It gives 2 bonus culture. It's all cool in early game, until you get your very first building. Which takes about 20-30 turns. After that, whole trait is basically obsolete. It's possible to make way more culture with just buildings.
Moving to the Brakiri civilization trait:
It gives money. 2/city and 5% to all. Their only leader also has income boosts which total to 4/city and 5% to all. Now, that's really a nice bonus, especially if you have a large, undeveloped empire. Except that never really happens. Simply put, it's useful, but not nearly as useful as the other traits. I would recommend buffing the 5% to 10%, or if possible, adding a trade route bonus to it.
Next up is Spiritual:
It has many strengths. It gives as much health bonus as expansive and the largest happiness bonus, too, both being 2/city. That alone is a lot. But that's not all. It gives 10% bonus to experience required for promotions, which, coupled with the Narn innate bonus, for example, makes it 20%. So, now you can support more population and your ships gain experience faster? Awesome! But wait! There's more! 1 bonus to cash, science and culture seal this trait as completely OP. The ONLY drawback is that you get penalty of 1 espionage points per city, which doesn't even matter that much.
Comparing Spiritual and Creative would be like comparing pocket knife and swiss army machete. You get the idea.
The Centauri get a bonus in espionage, 2/city. Too bad ALL of their leaders have 2 traits that give give -1 penalty to espionage. No bonus spying for them.
7. On some of the ships.
Some races seem to have ships that can be produced without the appropriate ship-production building. Humans need a building to build a recon ship, but the Dilgar do not. Is this intentional? I hope not.
That's all this time.
This mod has a LOT of potential, but unfortunately, it's made unplayable by several mistakes, and errors in thinking.
I sincerely hope that progress starts again, soon, and the things I pointed out get fixed.
.
